Why don't people realize that the two nukes we dropped on Japan took 200,000 lives but saved 5 million?

Question

The two nukes we ended the war with stopped them from gaining the three months they needed to create a second bomb after their successful test at Hungnam, North Korea on Aug. 12. It halted our Operation Coronet, which would have been the invasion of the southern most island of Japan by 1946. If our bomb was a dud we were going to gas the population to save American troops' lives. Life mag. and Popular Mechanics both ran articles preparing the US for the use of this weapon. The Japanese it used in China to kill hundreds of thousands. Other option was to starve them out then invade. All this would have cost millions of lives on both sides. But these people were saved by Hiroshima. When retaliation murders of POW's began Nagasaki and the surrender saved their lives directly. I personally know someone saved in this manner. As an unfed human skeleton, he was being worked to death in a condemned coal mine. He was going to be shot after Hiroshima but Nagasaki forced the surrender. Brave man

Answer 1

First, we killed over 100,000 when we firebombed Tokyo in one night. I'm not sure that one method of death is more horrible than the other.

Second, if isthisinuisetoo thinks that we took lives of women and children to save soldier's lives, he needs to review his history. Any soldier in the Pacific campaign will tell you that on islands like Okinawa many women and children were killed, either by suicide due to Japanese propaganda, or during the course of battle. Quite frankly, even though so many women and children died, the non-combatant death toll would've been much higher in the event of an invasion.

Third, unlike the wusses today, the American people were used to bloody invasions in the Pacific. America lost more soldiers in one day in many Pacific battles than we've lost in Iraq since 1992. The American people had accepted huge numbers of casualties in order to win the war. Certainly the military fully expected to invade Japan -- and if the Americans didn't do it, the Soviets sure as heck would've. The US would've invaded Japan just to make sure that the Soviets didn't get Japan!!!

Answer 2

The bombs that were dropped was to save American lives not Japanese. At the same time it did save millions of Japanese lives. There is something that has not been too much talked about. The Civilian populace had to attend Anti-Invasion training. They were prepared to do gorilla warfare if the American invaded mainland Japan. Now the war is over all we have to do is remember and learn.

Answer 3

The majority of my friends are Japanese and despite the fact that I've known some people who lost family in the bombing I've also heard them say that it was probably for the best but that's not saying that what happened was hurtful.
I think we have to remember the bombings to see what war can lead us to and even if it can hurt to acknowledge the past and learn from it helps the future. We have to look at what we have done and ask, "Did it give us a better future?"
So I would say that yes the bombings were needed and did give us a better future. If it didn't happen then it probably would have cause more casualties on both sides.

Answer 4

I don't see your point.. yeah... so it WAS justified back then.. What is the point of bringing it up NOW?? 50 years later??

If you are trying to justify its use on other countries in the current world war I disagree.. We never should have invaded where we don't belong. We are not better now that the Japanese were back then. Only in the event that a single country provokes us into war should we have the audacity to even think of invading another country! 9-11 wasn't an act of war by another nation. It is an act of war by extremists. It is only those extremists that should die, not the innocent civilians that have been slaughtered because we are mad at people that look just like them.

Answer 5

The atomic bombs have been dropped in August. Germany had surrendered in could, no longer that this has something to do with the value of tea in Japan. Why drop the bombs? because of the fact Japan nonetheless had a formidible military, became into exhibiting no sign of capitulation and as Okinawa needless to say confirmed could combat bitterly for her residing house soil. The atomic bombs did no longer kill 2 hundred,000 people. They saved 5,000,000 people. in addition they prevented the branch of Japan into communist and western ruled halves like Germany.

Answer 6

Cheers, well said. My grandfather was on his way to Japan when the war ended and if the bombs hadn´t been dropped, the whole Baby Boom generation and its descendants probably wouldn´t be here right now. If the Germans or Japanese had developed the Bomb before us, I´m sure they wouldn´t have been quite so merciful.

Answer 7

You have a point. War is war and it is not a pleasant thing. But the images, the degree of devastation, the speed of death is just something that will always struck minds more than the motives behind it. And it should so we may never have to resort to that again. Although some people, namely ones like theonlydann
makes me want to.

Answer 8

In the liberalistic world we live in today, ignorance of truth is bliss. I'm sure that the people who were against using the bomb would have just began to complain about something else had we not dropped it.

Answer 9

Most people except the ardent America-haters agree that dropping the bombs saved many lives, both Japanese and American.

Answer 10

Because you could have nuke their oceans with zero casualties and have the same effect.